Chapter 7: Crowbar

The biopsy came back in two days, and the silver-haired doctor was right.

It was the slow kind of tumor, the kind that could be cut out.

My surgery was booked for eighteen days away.

Gavin read the report in the hospital hallway, folded it, and said, "Get in the car."

"Where are we going?"

"To get your studio."

We arrived at the Aldercott house at six-thirty in the morning, with a demolition crew's truck right behind us.

Six men in work boots stood on the front steps with crowbars and drop cloths.

"Gavin," I said. "It's six-thirty. They'll all be at breakfast."

"Good," he said. "I want them to be."

He took my elbow, and he did not let go.

We walked through the front hall and into the long dining room.

The Aldercott family sat at the table in the morning light, with silver pots and a bowl of peaches between them.

Miriam was at the head, in pearls even at dawn.

Willa sat on her right in a robe, with a plate of untouched toast.

On Willa's other side sat a man I hadn't seen in a month, in rimless glasses and a crisp shirt, with a newspaper folded beside his plate.

My brother-in-law Simon had come home from Singapore.

He looked up when we came in, and he did not smile.

"Gavin," said Miriam. "What is this? Who are these men?"

"Contractors," Gavin said.

"What for?"

"The guest wing. Cassandra's studio. It's going back."

The silence lasted one breath.

Then Miriam stood, and her chair scraped back from the table.

"You will do no such thing. That room is a nursery."

"It's a room I had gutted for no good reason," Gavin said. "I'm correcting it."

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